Custom Kitchen Knife – Built To Your Spec

Description

Use this listing only after you have configured a kitchen knife on the builder. It exists so a finished specification can pass through checkout with its options attached. On its own it is an empty vessel; the builder is where the knife is actually described.

Start with the job, not the name

Most people arrive asking for a chef knife because that is the word they know. Sometimes that is right. Often what they actually want is a petty for the small jobs they do forty times a day, or a santoku because they push-cut more than they rock, or a boning knife because they break down whole birds. We would rather build you the knife you reach for than the one with the familiar name, so tell us what you cook. Our comparison of boning and fillet knives is a good example of how much difference a few degrees of flex and a couple of millimetres of spine make.

Carbon or stainless

This is the choice that changes daily life with the knife more than anything else on the form. High-carbon steel and Damascus take a screaming edge and are easy to bring back on a stone, but they will darken from onion and tomato and they will spot if you leave them wet in the sink. Stainless is duller to sharpen and slower to reward you, and it forgives everything. Neither is the correct answer; it depends entirely on whether you are the sort of person who dries a knife before setting it down. We laid the whole argument out in carbon versus stainless for kitchen knives.

Then geometry. Grind angle, spine thickness and how far the bevel climbs the blade decide whether the knife falls through a butternut squash or wedges in it. Our explanation of chef knife bevels covers why a thin convex behind the edge beats a steeper angle on almost every kitchen task.

Built in Memphis, fitted to your hand

Kitchen work is repetitive in a way field work is not, so handle fit is not a cosmetic question. We will ask about your hand size, your grip, and whether you pinch the blade or hold behind the bolster, and we shape accordingly. Stabilised hardwood, horn and micarta are all on the table, though anything porous gets sealed properly first.

Forging, heat treat, grinding and final sharpening all happen at our Tennessee bench. You will see the knife before it is finished and there is room to adjust the handle profile at that point.

Living with it afterwards

Hand wash, always, and set it down dry rather than leaving it on the drainer. The dishwasher will ruin a wooden handle in a fortnight and it will do the edge no favours either. Keep it on a magnetic bar or in a saya rather than loose in a drawer where the edge meets every fork you own; our storage guide covers the practical options. A ceramic or steel rod keeps the edge true between stone sessions.